Колледжи и университеты США

A short time after the first colonists came to the territory, which we now call Massachusetts, the General Court of Massachusetts made the first contribution for Harvard College. It was in 1636. This school later be­came the famous Harvard University. It is the oldest university in the United States. It was named in honor of John Harvard, who died in 1638. This man left his library and half of his property to the university. People knew that the future of the new country depended on education. And after the establishment of Harvard they began to establish other schools. In 1776 the Americans declared their independence. By this time nine other institutions were opened. Their present names and the dates of their opening are:

College of Willian and Mary (1693).

Yale University (1701).

Princeton University (1746).

Washington and Lee University (1749).

Columbia University (1754).

University of Pensilvania (1755).

Brown University (1764).

Rutgers College (1766).

Dartmouth College (1770).

Some of the money for the educational institutions came from the government, but most of it came from people who felt that by giving their money they were investing in the new country. People believed that the new country needed colleges. They voted for their state governments to organize colleges, which would be supported by taxes. These are called state universities and they arc playing leading roles in the world of education in America. By 1894 all states had such universities. The University of Michigan, which first opened as a school in Detroit in 1817, became a state university in 1837 when Michigan became a state.

In the early 1800s most people thought that only men should affend college. But other people fell certain that women too must be educated. Some of them thought that the best would be to have co-educated colleges. Others thought that there must be separate colleges for men and women; Oberlin College, which was founded it 1833 was the first co-educational school. Mount Holyoke was founded in 1837. It was the first school for women. Other schools for women are: Vassar (1821), Wells (1868), Wellesley (1871). In 1870 Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, California began to admit women to state universities. Now all public universities admit women. Even many private men's colleges are beginning to admit women. So the ideas about American education are changing.

Princeton University

Princeton Universityis a vibrant community of scholarship and learning that stands in the nation's service and in the service of all nations. Chartered in 1746, and known as the College of New Jersey until 1896, it was British North America's fourth college. Fully coeducational since 1969, Princeton in the 2002-2003 academic year enrolled 6,632 students -- 4,635 undergraduates and 1,997 graduate students -- with a ratio of full-time students to faculty members of 5.6 to 1. The University, with more than 12,000 employees, is Mercer County's largest private employer and plays a major role in the educational, cultural and economic life of the region.

The College of William and Mary. The College of William and Mary, one of the nation's premier state-assisted liberal arts universities, believes that excellence in teaching is the key to unlocking intellectual and personal possibilities for students. Dedicated to this philosophy and committed to limited enrollment, the College provides high-quality undergraduate, graduate and professional education that prepares students to make significant contributions to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the nation. In recognition, the media have included William and Mary among the nation's prestigious "Public Ivys," and ranked it first among state institutions in terms of commitment to teaching.

History Chartered on February 8, 1693, by King William III and Queen Mary II as the second college in the American colonies. Severed formal ties with Britain in 1776. Became state-supported in 1906 and coeducational in 1918. Achieved modern university status in 1967. Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's premier academic honor society, and the honor code system of conduct were founded at William and Mary.

Location Located in historic Williamsburg, Va., approximately 150 miles south of Washington, D.C., midway between Richmond and Norfolk, Va.

Campus Approximately 1,200 acres including picturesque Lake Matoaka and the College Woods. Adjacent to Colonial Williamsburg, the Ancient Campus section is restored to 18th-century appearance.

Student Statistics Students from 50 states and 75 foreign countries; 79 percent of current freshmen graduated in top tenth of their class with the middle 50 percent having total SAT scores ranging from 1240-1400; 28 percent of all students received need-based financial aid totaling $14 million in 2000-2001.

Tuition and Fees For the 2002-2003 session, total annual cost of tuition, fees, room and board for in-state undergraduate students is$10,626; for out-of-state undergraduate students, $24,826. In-state students in the School of Law pay $11,100 and out-of-state students pay $21,290. In-state students in the Master's of Business Administration program pay $9,978 and out-of-state students pay $21,258. In-state graduate students in the Schools of Marine Science, Education, and Arts and Sciences pay $6,138 and out-of-state students pay $17,972.

Student Activities Over 250 student-interest groups plus 16 national social fraternities and 12 sororities; William and Mary Theatre, Concert and Sunday Series; Choir; Band; Speakers Forum; live entertainment in 10,000-seat W&M Hall. There are a total of 23 men's and women's intercollegiate athletic teams.

Library The Earl Gregg Swem Library contains more than one million volumes and computer access to many standard computerized data bases. Special Collections include documents from many historical figures, including the lifetime papers of U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger.

Major Buildings Sir Christopher Wren Building (1695), oldest academic building in the U.S.; President's House (1732); the Brafferton (1723); Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall; William and Mary Hall seating up to 10,000 for convocations, sports events, cultural programs. Among the College's newest buildings are the University Center, McGlothlin-Street Hall, the Reves Center, Plumeri Park and the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center. Residential halls and houses for 4,450 students.

Endowment $366 million

Annual Budget Total--$172 million for 2002-2003

Alumni 70,000

Governance A 17-member Board of Visitors appointed by the Governor of Virginia.

Administration

Chancellor: Dr. Henry A. Kissinger (The former Secretary of State and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 is 22nd Chancellor of the College)

President: Timothy J. Sullivan '66 (25th President of the College)

Provost: Gillian T. Cell

Vice President for University Development: Dennis Cross

Vice President for Student Affairs: W. Samuel Sadler '64

Vice President for Public Affairs: Stewart H. Gamage '72

Vice President of Finance: Samuel E. Jones '75

Vice President for Administration: Anna Martin

Director of Athletics: Edward C. Driscoll, Jr.

Yale University.

Yale University was founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School in the home of Abraham Pierson, its first rector, in Killingworth, Connecticut. In 1716 the school moved to New Haven and, with generous gift by Elihu Yale of nine bales of goods, 417 books, and a portrait of King George the first, renamed Yale College in 1718.

Yale embarked on a steady expansion, establishing the Medical Institution (1810), Divinity School (1822), Law School (1843), Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1847), the School of Fine Arts (1869) and School of Music (1894). In 1887 Yale College became Yale University. It continued to add to its academic offerings with the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (1900), School of Nursing (1923), School of Drama (1955), School of Architecture (1972), and School of Management (1974).

Rutgers College.

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, with over 60,000 students on campuses in Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick, is one of the major state university systems in the nation. The university is made up of twenty-six degree-granting divisions; twelve undergraduate colleges, eleven graduate schools, and three schools offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Five are located in Camden, seven in Newark, and fourteen in New Brunswick.

Rutgers has a unique history as a colonial college, a land-grant institution, and a state university. Chartered in 1766 as Queen's College, the eighth institution of higher learning to be founded in the colonies before the revolution, the school opened its doors in New Brunswick in 1771 with one instructor, one sophomore, and a handful of freshmen. During this early period the college developed as a classical liberal arts institution. In 1825, the name of the college was changed to Rutgers to honor a former trustee and revolutionary war veteran, Colonel Henry Rutgers.

Rutgers College became the land-grant college of New Jersey in 1864, resulting in the establishment of the Rutgers Scientific School with departments of agriculture, engineering, and chemistry. Further expansion in the sciences came with the founding of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in 1880, the College of Engineering in 1914, and the College of Agriculture (now Cook College) in 1921. The precursors to several other Rutgers divisions were also founded during this period: the College of Pharmacy in 1892, the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) in 1918, and the School of Education (now a graduate school) in 1924.

Brown University

Founded in 1764, Brown University was the third college in New England and the seventh in America - and the only one that welcomed students of all religious persuasions. A commitment to diversity and intellectual freedom remains a hallmark of the University today. Established as Rhode Island College in the town of Warren, Rhode Island, the University moved to its present location on Providence's College Hill in 1770. In 1804, the University was renamed to honor a $5,000 donation from Providence merchant Nicholas Brown. Over the years the University grew steadily, adding graduate courses in the 1880s, a women's college in 1889 (renamed Pembroke College in 1928), a graduate school in 1927, and a medical education program in 1973 (now the Brown Medical School). The men's and women's undergraduate colleges merged in 1971. While facilities and programs expanded, Brown chose to keep its enrollment relatively small, with an undergraduate student-faculty ratio of about 9 to 1. The main campus covers nearly 140 acres, all of it within a 10-minute walk of its hub, the College Green. The University is situated on a historic residential hill overlooking downtown Providence, a city of some 170,000 people.

The University library system contains more than 5 million items, including bound volumes, periodicals, maps, sheet music, and manuscripts. The number of items grows by more than 100,000 each year. The John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, known as "the Rock," is Brown's primary humanities and social-sciences resource center. The Sciences Library houses the University's collection of science and medical books and periodicals. Located on the 14th floor is the University's media services operation. The John Hay Library houses special collections, including most of the University's rare books, manuscripts, and archives. The John Carter Brown Library is an independently administered and funded center for advanced research in history and the humanities. It houses an internationally renowned collection of primary sources pertaining to the Americas before 1825. Other specialty libraries include the Orwig Music Library (the general music collection), the Art Slide Library (slides of art and art-related subjects, including architecture and archaeology), and the Demography Library (a major resource for population research). Teaching, research and public service are conducted through a number of centers and institutes affiliated with the University. They include the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, the Population Studies and Training Center, and the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Carrying on an intercollegiate athletic tradition more than 100 years old, the Brown Bears compete against the seven other Ivy League schools and against other colleges and universities at the NCAA Division I level. Brown has one of the nation's broadest arrays of varsity teams -- 37 in all; 20 for women and 17 for men. Brown has its share of historic firsts, including the nation's first intercollegiate men's ice hockey game (defeating Harvard 6-0 on January 19, 1898) and the nation's first women's varsity ice hockey team (organized in 1964). As a member of the Ivy League, Brown awards financial aid on the basis of need; it does not grant athletic scholarships.

Penn received record-high 19,153 applications for admission to the Class of 2005. Of those applicants, 4,132, or 21.6 percent, were offered admission, making the class of 2005 the most selective in Penn's history and the institution among the most selective universities in America. Ninety-two percent of the students admitted for Fall 2001 came from the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class and scored a combined 1,412 on the SAT. 2,391 students matriculated into this year's freshman class.

Internationalism:

Record-high 2,588 international students applied for admission to Penn's undergraduate schools for Fall 2001, and 401 (15.5%) received admissions offers. Ten percent of the first Ten percent of the first year classes are international students. Of the international students accepted to the Class of 2005, 11.1% were from Africa and the Middle East, 44.6% from Asia, 1% from Australia and the Pacific, 14.3% from Canada and Mexico, 10.6% from Central/South America and the Caribbean, and 18.6% from Europe. Penn had 3,485 international students enrolled in Fall 2001.

Study Abroad:

Penn offers 65 study-abroad programs in 36 countries. Penn ranks first among the Ivy League schools in the number of students studying abroad, according to the most recent data (Institute for International Education, 1999-2000). In 1999-2000, 1,196 Penn undergraduate students participated in study- abroad programs.

Diversity:

About 42 percent of those accepted for admission to the Class of 2005 are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. Women comprise 50 percent of all students currently enrolled.

The College at Penn (School of Arts and Sciences), 6,464 School of Engineering and Applied Science, 1,612 School of Nursing, 363 The Wharton School, 1,729

Graduate and Professional Schools:

Penn's 12 graduate and professional schools, with their Fall 2001 student populations, are:

Annenberg School for Communication, 78 School of Arts and Sciences, 2,302 School of Dental Medicine, 530 Graduate School of Education, 1,059 School of Engineering and Applied Science, 884 Graduate School of Fine Arts, 562 Law School, 856 School of Medicine, 1,091 School of Nursing, 351 School of Social Work, 326 School of Veterinary Medicine, 451 The Wharton School, 2,055

Faculty:

Standing: 2,257 Associated: 2,062 Total: 4,319

The student-faculty ratio is 6.4:1 (Fall 2001). Measures of distinction of the faculty include:

61 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences; 44 members of the Institute of Medicine; 39 members of the National Academy of Sciences; 91 Guggenheim Fellowships (1980-2001); 11 members of the National Academy of Engineering; Seven MacArthur Award recipients; Six National Medal of Science recipients; Four Nobel Prize recipients; and Two Pulitzer Prize winners

Staff:

Penn is the largest private employer in the city of Philadelphia and the fourth-largest in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of Fall 2001, Penn has a total regular work force of 12,290. The University of Pennsylvania Health System, which includes the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, employs an additional 12,673 people.

Academics:

Total undergraduate majors currently being pursued: 94 (Academic Year 2002).

Approximately 5,000 University students, faculty and staff participate in more than 300 Penn volunteer and community service programs. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools recognized the University's West Philadelphia Improvement Corps (WEPIC), in Penn's Center for Community Partnerships, for exemplary school-college partnerships in Pennsylvania.

Fundraising (Fiscal Year 2001):

Endowment $3.382 billion (as of June 30, 2001) Voluntary support: $285 million 107,941 donors gave $138 million in contributions $92 million in gifts from foundations and associations $37 million in gifts from corporations

Washington and Lee is a small, private, liberal arts university nestled between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains in Lexington, VA. It is the ninth oldest institution of higher learning in the nation.

In 1749, Scotch-Irish pioneers who had migrated deep into the Valley of Virginia founded a small classical school called Augusta Academy, some 20 miles north of what is now Lexington. In 1776, the trustees, fired by patriotism, changed the name of the school to Liberty Hall. Four years later the school was moved to the vicinity of Lexington, where in 1782 it was chartered as Liberty Hall Academy by the Virginia legislature and empowered to grant degrees. A limestone building, erected in 1793 on the crest of a ridge overlooking Lexington, burned in 1803, though its ruins are preserved today as a symbol of the institution's honored past.

In 1796, George Washington saved the struggling Liberty Hall Academy when he gave the school its first major endowment--$20,000 worth of James River Canal stock. The trustees promptly changed the name of the school to Washington Academy as an expression of their gratitude. In a letter to the trustees, Washington responded, "To promote the Literature in this rising Empire, and to encourage the Arts, have ever been amongst the warmest wishes of my heart." The donations - one of the largest to any educational institution at that time –continue to contribute to the University's operating budget today.

General Robert E. Lee reluctantly accepted the position of president of the College in 1865. Because of his leadership of the Confederate army, Lee worried he "might draw upon the College a feeling of hostility," but also added that "I think it the duty of every citizen in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony." During his brief presidency, Lee established the School of Law, encouraged development of the sciences, and instituted programs in business instruction that led to the founding of the School of Commerce in 1906. He also inaugurated courses in journalism, which developed by 1925 into The School of Journalism--now the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications. These courses in business and journalism were the first offered in colleges in the United States. After Lee's death in 1870, the trustees voted to change the name from Washington College to Washington and Lee University.

Once an all-male institution, Washington and Lee first admitted women to its law school in 1972. The first undergraduate women matriculated in 1985. Since then, Washington and Lee has flourished. The University now boasts a new science building, a performing arts center and an indoor tennis facility, and it continues to climb the ranking charts of U.S. News and World Report and other rating agencies. Washington and Lee is ranked 15th among the top national liberal arts colleges by U.S. News.

Washington and Lee University observed its 250th Anniversary with a year-long, national celebration during the 1998-99 academic year.

Columbia University.

Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.

Controversy preceded the founding of the College, with various groups competing to determine its location and religious affiliation. Advocates of New York City met with success on the first point, while the Anglicans prevailed on the latter. However, all constituencies agreed to commit themselves to principles of religious liberty in establishing the policies of the College.

In July 1754, Samuel Johnson held the first classes in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. There were eight students in the class. At King’s College, the future leaders of colonial society could receive an education designed to “enlarge the Mind, improve the Understanding, polish the whole Man, and qualify them to support the brightest Characters in all the elevated stations in life.” One early manifestation of the institution’s lofty goals was the establishment in 1767 of the first American medical school to grant the MD degree.

The American Revolution brought the growth of the College to a halt, forcing a suspension of instruction in 1776 that lasted for eight years. However, the institution continued to exert a significant influence on American life through the people associated with it. Among the earliest students and Trustees of King’s College were John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States; Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury; Gouverneur Morris, the author of the final draft of the U.S. Constitution; and Robert R. Livingston, a member of the five-man committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence.

The College reopened in 1784 with a new name—Columbia—that embodied the patriotic fervor, which had inspired the nation’s quest for independence. The revitalized institution was recognizable as the descendant of its colonial ancestor, thanks to its inclination toward Anglicanism and the needs of an urban population, but there were important differences: Columbia College reflected the legacy of the Revolution in the greater economic, denominational, and geographic diversity of its new students and leaders. Cloistered campus life gave way to the more common phenomenon of day students, who lived at home or lodged in the city.

In 1849, the College moved from Park Place, near the present site of City Hall, to 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for the next fifty years. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Columbia rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. The Law School was founded in 1858, and the country’s first mining school, a precursor of today’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, was established in 1864.

When Seth Low became Columbia’s president in 1890, he vigorously promoted the university ideal for the College, placing the fragmented federation of autonomous and competing schools under a central administration that stressed cooperation and shared resources. Barnard College for women had become affiliated with Columbia in 1889; the medical school came under the aegis of the University in 1891, followed by Teachers of graduate faculties in political science, philosophy, and pure science established Columbia as one of the nation’s earliest centers for graduate education. In 1896, the Trustees officially authorized the use of yet another new name, Columbia University, and today the institution is officially known as Columbia University in the City of New York.

Low’s greatest accomplishment, however, was moving the University from 49th Street to Morningside Heights and a more spacious campus designed as an urban academic village by McKim, Mead & White, the renowned turn-of-the-century architectural firm. Architect Charles Follen McKim provided Columbia with stately buildings patterned after those of the Italian Renaissance. The University continued to prosper after its move uptown.

During the presidency of Nicholas Murray Butler (1902–1945), Columbia emerged as a preeminent national center for educational innovation and scholarly achievement. John Erskine taught the first Great Books Honors Seminar at Columbia College in 1919, making the study of original masterworks the foundation of undergraduate education. Columbia became, in the words of College alumnus Herman Wouk, a place of “doubled magic,” where “the best things of the moment were outside the rectangle of Columbia; the best things of all human history and thought were inside the rectangle.” The study of the sciences flourished along with the liberal arts, and in 1928, Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center, the first such center to combine teaching, research, and patient care, was officially opened as a joint project between the medical school and The Presbyterian Hospital.

By the late 1930s, a Columbia student could study with the likes of Jacques Barzun, Paul Lazarsfeld, Mark Van Doren, Lionel Trilling, and I.I. Rabi, to name just a few of the great minds of the Morningside campus. The University’s graduates during this time were equally accomplished—for example, two alumni of Columbia’s Law School, Charles Evans Hughes and Harlan Fiske Stone (who also held the position of Law School dean), served successively as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Research into the atom by faculty members I.I. Rabi, Enrico Fermi, and Polykarp Kusch placed Columbia’s Physics Department in the international spotlight in the 1940s, and the founding of the School of International Affairs (now the School of International and Public Affairs) in 1946 marked the beginning of intensive growth in international relations as a major scholarly focus of the University. The Oral History movement in the United States was launched at Columbia in 1948.

Columbia celebrated its Bicentennial in 1954 during a period of steady expansion. This growth mandated a major campus-building program in the 1960s, and, by the end of the decade, five of the University’s schools were housed in new buildings.

The revival of spirit and energy on Columbia’s campus in recent years has been even more sweeping. The 1980s saw the completion of over $145 million worth of new construction, including two residence halls, a computer science center, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a chemistry building, the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Lawrence A. Wien Stadium, and much more. The quality of student life on campus has been a primary concern, and the opening of Morris A. Schapiro Hall in 1988 enabled Columbia College to achieve its long-held goal of offering four years of housing to all undergraduate students. A second gift from this farsighted benefactor led to the opening in 1992 of the Morris A. Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research, which is helping to secure Columbia’s leadership in telecommunications and high-tech research.

On the Health Sciences campus, a generous commitment from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation has lent impetus to the development of the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park by providing funds for construction of the Center for Disease Prevention. In addition to securing Columbia’s place at the forefront of medical research, this project will help spur the growth of the biotechnology industry in New York City, forge vital new links between Columbia and the local community, and help to revitalize the area around the medical center.

Thanks to concerted efforts to place the University on the strongest possible foundations, Columbia is approaching the twenty-first century with a firm sense of the importance of what has been accomplished in the past and confidence in what it can achieve in the years to come.

In 1897, the University moved from 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it had stood for fifty years, to its present location on Morningside Heights at 116th Street and Broadway. Seth Low, the President of the University at the time of the move, sought to create an academic village in a more spacious setting. Charles Follen McKim of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White modeled the new campus after the Athenian agora. The Columbia campus comprises the largest single collection of McKim, Mead & White buildings in existence.

The architectural centerpiece of the campus is Low Memorial Library, named in honor of Seth Low’s father. Built in the Roman classical style, it appears in the New York City Register of Historic Places. The building today houses the University’s central administration offices and the Visitors Center.

A broad flight of steps descends from Low Library to an expansive plaza, a popular place for students to gather, and from there to College Walk, a promenade that bisects the central campus. Beyond College Walk is the South Campus, where Butler Library, the University’s main library, stands. South Campus is also the site of many of Columbia College’s facilities, including student residences, the Ferris Booth Hall activities center, and the College’s administrative offices and classroom buildings, along with the building housing the Journalism School.

To the north of Low Library stands Pupin Hall, which in 1966 was designated a national historic landmark in recognition of the atomic research undertaken there by Columbia’s scientists beginning in 1925. To the east is St. Paul’s Chapel, which is listed with the New York City Register of Historic Places.

Many newer buildings surround the original campus. Among the most impressive are the Sherman Fairchild Center for the Life Sciences, the Computer Science building, Morris A. Schapiro Hall, and the Morris A. Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research.

Two miles to the north of Morningside Heights is the twenty-acre campus of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Washington Heights. Among the most prominent buildings on the site are the twenty-story Julius and Armand Hammer Health Sciences Center, the William Black Medical Research building, and the seventeen-story tower of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1989, The Presbyterian Hospital opened the Milstein Hospital Building, a 745-bed facility that incorporates the very latest advances in medical technology and patient care. To the west is the New York State Psychiatric Institute; east of Broadway will be the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park, which will include the new Center for Disease Prevention. The Park is being developed as a major urban research complex to house activities on the cutting edge of scientific and medical research.

Other interesting information.

It is also very interesting, that in the USA many universities are connected with each other. They belong to different unions. For example, Dartmouth College, Brown University, Columbia University, Princeton University and Yale University are the parts of «Ivy League». It is a union of the most respectable and famous universities in the United States of America.

«Ivy League» consists of eight colleges and universities. All of them are rather old and popular. But they are not cheap, because students must pay much money for their education.

The most expensive University is Dartmouth. The cheapest one is Yale.

All the universities have their own emblems, which are always different and have definite meanings.

The Report.

Klimenko Ekaterina.

9 form «V».

Education and Culture

In the United States, education, cultural activities, and the communications media exert a tremendous influence on the lives of individuals. Through these means, knowledge and cultural values are generated, transmitted, and preserved from one generation to the next.

In most of the United States, illiteracy has been virtually eliminated. However, census estimates suggest that 2.4 percent of the population over age 25 is functionally illiterate, that is, they are unable to read and write well enough to meet the demands of everyday life. More of the population has received more education than ever before. Among Americans aged 25 and older in 1993, about four-fifths had completed high school, as compared with only about one-fourth as recently as 1940. In 1993 nearly 22 percent of the population had completed four or more years of college. This same trend toward increased accessibility and usage applies to America's cultural institutions, which have continued to thrive despite a troubled economy.

Education

In the United States, education is offered at all levels from prekindergarten to graduate school by both public and private institutions. Elementary and secondary education involves 12 years of schooling, the successful completion of which leads to a high school diploma. Although public education can be defined in various ways, one key concept is the accountability of school officials to the voters. In theory, responsibility for operating the public education system in the United States is local. In fact, much of the local control has been superseded, and state legislation controls financing methods, academic standards, and policy and curriculum guidelines. Because public education is separately developed within each state, variations exist from one state to another. Parallel paths among states have developed, however, in part because public education is also a matter of national interest.

Public elementary and secondary education is supported financially by three levels of government—local, state, and federal. Local school districts often levy property taxes, which are the major source of financing for the public school systems. One of the problems that arises because of the heavy reliance on local property tax is a disparity in the quality of education received by students. Rich communities can afford to pay more per student than poorer communities; consequently, the disparity in wealth affects the quality of education received. Some states have taken measures to level this imbalance by distributing property tax collections to school districts based on the number of students enrolled.

When public education was established in the American colonies in the mid-17th century, it was viewed by many as an instrument that would break down the barriers of social class and prejudice. Public schools were intended for all creeds, classes, and religions. In addition to the development of individuals, public schools were to promote social harmony by equalizing the conditions of the population.

Most students attended private schools, however, until well into the 19th century. Then, in the decades before the American Civil War (1861-1865), a transition took place from private to public school education. This transition was to provide children of all classes with a free education. The idea of free public education did, however, encounter opposition. The nonwhite population, which consisted primarily of blacks, was either totally denied an education or allowed to attend only racially segregated schools.

School Segregation

Before the Civil War, public school segregation was common both in the South and in the North. In every southern state except Kentucky and Maryland, laws existed that forbade the teaching of reading and writing to slaves.

In 1867, after the end of the Civil War, schools for blacks began to be established in various parts of the South. For nearly a century, until 1954, most education facilities in the southern states remained racially segregated by state laws. Not only were schools segregated, but, in schools for blacks, the physical conditions and facilities were poor, transportation to such schools was meager or nonexistent, and expenditures per black pupil fell below those per white pupil.

In the northern states during this same period, most black children also attended separate schools. Sometimes this was the result of state laws; more often it was the result of policy decisions, either officially acknowledged or clandestine. Examples of the latter are gerrymandered school districts and pupil transfer systems. The result, in the South and the North, was a dual system of education for blacks and whites.

In 1954 the Supreme Court of the United States declared racial segregation in schools illegal, in its landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision. Since then progress has been made toward desegregation; however, widespread de facto segregation still exists today in both suburban and urban areas. In the late 1980s more than 60 percent of black and Hispanic American students attended schools where minority group enrollment constituted over 50 percent of the total. In some large cities, either because of residential patterns or because of an intent to segregate schools, entire school districts are still segregated. Some districts have attempted the busing of pupils to help achieve integration, but this has proved generally unpopular and unworkable. Thus, the right to a desegregated education remains more theoretical than real for many children.

Elementary and Secondary Enrollments

In 1993 some 59,680 public elementary and 19,995 public secondary schools were in operation in the United States, in addition to 4826 special-purpose or combined schools. Enrollment in public schools in 1993 totaled about 31 million elementary pupils and about 11.7 million secondary students. In addition, private elementary and secondary schools together enrolled about 4.9 million students in 1991. The largest system of private education in the United States is that of the Roman Catholic church, with some 2.6 million students in 1991. In public schools, the average expenditure per pupil in the United States in 1993 was about $5574, ranging from a low of about $3218 in Utah to a high of about $9712 in New Jersey.

Higher Education

The first American colleges were small and attended by an aristocratic student body. The earliest institutions were established in the United States between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries: Harvard University (1636), the College of William and Mary (1693), Yale University (1701), the University of Pennsylvania (1740), Princeton University (1746), Columbia University (1754), Brown University (1764), Rutgers University (1771), and Dartmouth College (1769). These private institutions initially prepared students for careers in theology, law, medicine, and teaching—a curriculum too narrow for a country experiencing a rapid expansion of its territory, industry, and industrial population.

An important development occurred in 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act (see Land-Grant Colleges), which donated public lands to the several states and territories to provide colleges with the resources necessary to teach such branches of learning as agriculture and the mechanical arts. The Morrill Act was designed to promote the liberal and practical education of the new industrial population. Based on the act, each state was granted 12,141 hectares (30,000 acres) of federal land for each member it had in Congress. In addition to creating colleges, the Morrill Act extended education to groups that would benefit from higher education regardless of financial background and greatly accelerated the admission of women to institutions of higher learning. Some of the larger institutions that were established or expanded as a result of the Morrill Act include the University of Arizona (1885), the University of California at Berkeley (1868), the University of Florida (1853), the University of Illinois (1867), Purdue University (1865), the University of Maryland (1807), Michigan State University (1855), Ohio State University (1870), Pennsylvania State University (1855), and the University of Wisconsin (1849).

Higher education, like elementary and secondary education, has historically been racially segregated in the United States. Before 1954 most blacks gained access to higher education only by attending colleges and universities established for blacks, nearly all of which were located in the southern states. With the gradual dissolution of most traditional racial barriers, more and more blacks enrolled in institutions where whites made up the majority of the student body. By 1990 only about 17 percent of all black students were enrolled in the 105 historically black colleges and universities.

Accreditation

A unique feature of higher education in the United States is the device known as accreditation, which includes voluntary self-evaluation by a school and appraisal by a group of its peers. This process operates through nationally recognized accrediting agencies and associations and certain state bodies. These agencies or associations have established educational criteria to evaluate institutions in terms of their own objectives and to ascertain whether programs of educational quality are being maintained. They provide institutions with continued stimulus for improvement, to ensure that accredited status may serve as an authentic index of educational quality.

Costs of Higher Education

The cost of higher education varies by type of institution. Tuition is highest at private four-year institutions, and lowest at public two-year institutions. The private four-year colleges nearly quadrupled their average tuition rates between 1975 and 1990. For private four-year colleges, tuition and fees for the 1992-1993 academic year averaged about $13,043, compared with about $2827 at public four-year colleges. The cost of attending an institution of higher education includes not only tuition and fees, however, but also books and supplies, transportation, personal expenses and, sometimes, room and board. Although tuition and fees generally are substantially lower at public institutions than at private ones, the other student costs are about the same. The average cost for tuition, fees, and room and board for the 1992-1993 academic year at private four-year colleges was about $18,892. At public four-year colleges the average combined cost was about $6449.

Enrollment Trends

In 1992 about 62.1 million people were enrolled in elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education, about 1.1 million more than the number enrolled in 1975.

Nursery school enrollment increased sharply between 1970 and 1992, from about 1.1 million to about 2.9 million children. This rise in nursery school enrollment may have occurred because of the increasingly recognized value of preprimary education as well as the growth in employment outside the home of women with young children. College and university enrollment also increased substantially, from some 8.6 million students in 1970 to 14.5 million in 1992. The increase in enrollment in institutions of higher education was primarily due to the growth in attendance by women. Of the total school enrollment in 1992, whites constituted about 83 percent, blacks about 10 percent, and Hispanic Americans (who may be of any race) about 7 percent.

Libraries

· The beginning……………………………………………………….1-2

· Princeton University…………………………………………….2

· The College of William and Mary…………………………..2-7

· Yale University……………………………………………………..7

· Rutgers College……………………………………………………7-8

· Brown University…………………………………………………8-10

· University of Pensilvania………………………………………10-14

· Washington and Lee University…………………………….14-16

· Columbia University…………………………………………….16-22

· Other interesting information…………………………………22

· « Ivy League »………………………………………………………23-24

· Education and Culture……………………………………………25

· Education…………………………………………………………….25-31

· Literature…………………………………………………………….32

· N. V. Bagramova.

T. I. Vorontsova.

«The book for reading in area studies. The United States of America (country and people)»